Assighoe to the kitsojst



. r composed of a lesser number of fibers.

UNITED STATES ATENT OFFICE.

RICHARD KITSON, oELoWELL, MASSACHUSETTS7 ASSIGNOE To THE KITsoN MACHINECOMPANY, oE SAME PLACE.

COTTON-LAP.

SPECIFICATIONformng part of Letters Patent No. 292,921, dated February5, 1881;

Y Application led May 2, 1882. (No model.)

To all whom it may concern.: l

Beit known that I, RICHARD KITSoN, of Lowell, in the county of Middlesexand State of Massachusetts, have invented a new and useful Cotton-Lap,of which the following is a specification.

My invention relates to cotton-laps to bei fed to carding-machines; andits object is 'to provide a lap of equal thickness and solidity in allitsA parts, and having a straight .i edge, such lap, when formed of twoor more sheets, being no more liable to separate` at its edge than atany other place.

Heretofore a cotton-lap has been formed by depositing the cotton, afterits fibers had been separated from one another and while they werecarried forward by a current of air, upon a cage or wire-screen cylinderinto which the air currentpassed, while the cottontloat` ing in tlewairwas felted or deposited in a sheet on the surface of the cage, afterwhich it was taken off the cage and either laid with another similarsheet and then passed between calender-rolls, or passed between suchrolls by itself. As it passed between such rolls as heretoforeconstructed, and great pressure was applied to it, the portion near theedges not being so well Vsupported as the middle portions, and preventedfrom sidewise escape by other portions of the sheet, would flatten andwiden out, so that while the edge portion would, as it passed betweenthe rolls, fill the space between them and receive some pressure, itwould not contain in any given port-ion as many :fibers of cotton as themore central parts of the lap, and -the fibers composing such` edgeportion would not be so firmly pressed together, so that after the laphad passed through the rolls and hadexpanded, as it naturally would whenrelieved of the pressure, the central parts containing the most cottonwould expand, so as to be thicker than the edge portions, which were Thelap would therefore have each edge thinner than the middle portion, sothat when fed to the card theV edge portion of the card did not have asufficient quantity of cotton to supply the card to its full capacity.

Another faultV in the formation of a lap as above described was that anylocks of cotton or fibers which overreached the margin of thedeposit-surface ofthe cage would, as the sheets passed through betweenthe calender rolls, frequently fail to becomeV part of the body of thelap, and, projecting beyond its edge, would be lia-ble to 'be caught bythe card and the two sheets forming the lap separated at their edgeswhere less firmly compacted together by thepressure of thecalender-rolls.

My improved lap is not subject to these im perfections and liable tothese accidents, and the card to which it is fed will be occupied to itsfull capacity in all its parts because, the lap being of equal thicknessin all its parts, as o5 much cotton will pass to the card at one placeas at another, and as the edge is straight no overlapping ends exist tobe caught by the card to pull the lap and tear it. l y y I produce thislap on the mechanism illus- 7o trated in the drawings accompanying myapplication for machine patent iiled in vthe Patent Office on the 19thday of January, 1882. The lap I produce is shown in the accompanyingdrawings, Figure 1 of which is a per- 75 Spective of a portion thereof.Fig. 2 shows a perspective of a portion of a lap as heretofore producedby the ordinary mechanism.

M is the lap I produce with my improved mechanism. m is the central partof the lap; 8o m-, the edge.-

It will be observed that the lap is equally thick at the edge and in thecentral parts, and that the edge from p to g is straight, while in theother lap, N, as heretofore formed, the middle part, n, is thicker thanthe edge n, and the edge u2 is not straight from r to As, but there areprojecting points t t.

Having thus described the difference between the lap heretofore producedand the one 9o now produced by me, and the method by which I produce it,I now claim as new and of my inventionl. A cotton -lap in proper form tofeed to a carding-machine, having a substantially straightedge and equalthickness in all its parts, substantially as described.

2. A cotton-lap of substantially equal thickness in all its parts,having a straight edge formed upon it without cutting any of its Ioofibers, substantially as described.

EICHAED K'ITsoN.

Vitnesses:

C. P. KITsoN, LEPINE C. RICE.

